Super PT To The Rescue!

I take back what I said about PT being boring.  I'm only a third of the way through my sessions and I'm already sadly contemplating the all too soon arrival of a time when I don't have someone making awesome workouts just for me three times a week. 
At our last session (Monday) my PT and I got to talking more about skating and derby and it rapidly became apparent that while she had set up a really great knee strengthening program for me, she has no idea how to skate or what we do in roller derby.  This could not stand, so when I saw her again yesterday I brought in my skates and the rule book, both of which made her eyes light up.
The first thing she wanted to do was weigh my skates.  I always sort of put them at two or three pounds, but really they're closer to five apiece.  Then we did some work with an agility ladder on skates.  I love this idea.  Agility ladders are great for footwork anyway, adding the weight and instability of skates is good for derby and doing it on carpet is an easy introduction, although I would love to try it in a rink.
For those who are unfamiliar with an agility ladder, it's basically hopscotch.  There are a bunch of boxes taped or laid out in a long line on the floor and you step in and out of them.  Google it.  It's one of many ways to develop good fast twitch muscles.  We did two variations.  The first is called an icky shuffle (not kidding).  You start to the left of the ladder, step into it with your right foot, step into it with your left foot then step out of it to the right with your right foot and then step forward into the next box with your left foot.  Repeat.  For the second she wanted to work on short quick crossovers.  You stand to the left of the ladder, cross over and into the box with your left foot, step across and out of the box on the right side with your right foot and bring your left foot to the side of your right foot.  Repeat on the opposite side.

After taking a look at the diagrams of legal blocking zones, she wanted to work with me on my ability to resist blocking and hitting.  She has a large foam roller that's cut in half lengthwise.  She put the rounded side down and had me stand (in sneakers) on the flat side with one foot in front of the other.  Then she went around and pushed on me in all the legal blocking zones.  This is hard.  Of course, front to back doesn't present much of a challenge with that setup, but the sideways motions do.  I would like to try it again but this time on a regular wobble board and on one foot.
She also wanted to know which skating actions cause me pain in my knee.  At the moment that includes duck walk runs (lots of pain), and transitions (a little twinge of pain).  I haven't tried to skate sideways lately, but I assume that would be painful too.  All of these involve skating with toes pointed away from each other so that's what we need to strengthen. 

She has a weight machine that is adjustable to any height and comes with straps that can be attached to almost any body part.  She set it up to be ankle height and strapped it around my ankle.  Then she had me bring out the foot with the weight and set it down as if I were doing a transition.  The other exercise involved a similar setup, but this time I was sitting down and had my foot on a lazy susan.  The strap was attached to my foot and I was to rotate it outward.  Then I turned around and pulled inward as well.  All of those were EXACTLY in the right place for where I've been feeling weakness lately and she says it should help prevent more injuries in the future.
We do a lot of other great exercises too, but this is already an epic post.  Of course if you really want to know about the other stuff, you could always be a winner and ask me about it...
<posted on 4.12.12>